This invention relates to a machine for fitting a slider on a pair of slide fastener stringers attached to a garment, such as a pair of trousers, and for applying an end stop to the interlocked fastener stringers subsequently but in immediate succession.
The operation of fitting the slider is closely associated with that of applying the end stop to the bottom end portion of the stringers which have been interlocked by the slider. As well known in the art, the slider is first fitted on the stringers attached to the garment and then the bottom end stop is applied to the interlocked stringers. However, it was difficult to carry out these two different operations within very limited working spaces around the end stop applying machine. The conventional practice was therefore to thread a pair of fastener stringers through a slider supported on the jig of a slider holding machine and thereafter cautiously hand-carry the interlocked stringers onto the anvil of an end stop applying machine located separately wherein a staple-like end stop is applied to a predetermined position of the interlocked fastener stringers. This procedure was not only time-consuming but often involved misplaced end stops on the stringers, so that the finished fastener product was defective in many cases. The hand-carrying relay of the fastener from one place to another was more tedious and skill-requisite particularly where the stringers to be worked upon had been previously attached to garment strips or the like.
Attempts have heretofore been made to eliminate the above-noted difficulties. One such attempt was to propose a combined slider fitting and end stop applying machine wherein a slider jig and an end stop anvil are movable together between a first or slider fitting station where the slide fastener stringers are threaded through a jig-supported slider and a second or end stop applying station where an end stop is secured to the stringers at a desired position. Although this proposal has substantially eliminated the prior art drawbacks, another difficulty with the machine arose; that is, since the jig and anvil members are located adjacent each other on the same block and have their top ends lying substantially on the same level during their movement between the first and second stations, the slider fitting operation was interfered by the adjacent anvil and failed to be effected smoothly. Another prior art attempt was to provide a machine wherein an anvil supporting arm is pivotable with a slider jig slidable mounted on a side of the arm. According to the latter proposal, the arm is pivotable between the slider fitting position where the slider jig is slidably raised along the arm beyond the anvil to enable the slider fitting operation to be effected unobstructedly, and the end stop applying position where the slider jig is slidably lowered to a predetermined point so as to facilitate the end stop applying operation. However, with this arrangement, the overall operation was rather troublesome because the slider jig must be manually moved upwardly and downwardly each time one cycle of the operation is effected. Furthermore, this proposal was disadvantageous in that the garment having the stringers with the end stop mounted thereon can not be removed from the end stop applying position but can be taken away only from the slider assembling position, since the slider can not be released from the jig until the latter has been returned to the slider assembling position where the next cycle of the operation commences.